1. Field
The disclosure relates to techniques for secure booting and provisioning.
2. Description of the Related Art
In conventional systems, storage platforms use firmware, such as Redboot™ firmware, in order to startup a storage platform or embed an operating system into the storage platform. RedBoot™ firmware provides a bootstrap environment for embedded systems. RedBoot™ firmware allows download and execution of embedded applications and allows applications to be stored in FLASH memory and then executed. RedBoot™ firmware may retrieve Internet Protocol (IP) (Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Request for Comments (RFC) 791), published September 1981) parameters via a Bootstrap Protocol (BOOTP) (IETF RFC 951, published September 1985), Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) (IETF RFC 2131, published March 1987) or Flash memory, and program images may be downloaded using Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) (IETF RFC 1350, Revision 2, published July 1992). Also, some conventional systems in manufacturing use some primitive firmware environments or operating-system present applications.
Conventional approaches are limited by a lack of security and ability to load operating systems across wide-area networks. In particular, conventional systems are limited by fixed configuration of a given operating system flashed into Flash memory at the storage platform. Also, since Flash memory is expensive, having to have all of the operating systems on each storage platform is very expensive.
With the advent of modular, blade computing and the associated initiatives, such as Sun NI from Sun Microsystems, autonomic computing from International Business Machines Corporation, and the Microsoft® Dynamic Systems Initiative, there is a need for system components to be provisioned and repurposed based on demand profile and changing system requirements.
In conventional systems, storage platforms use non-standard, proprietary firmware and operating systems. This lack of standardization makes reuse of components expensive across different product lines. This fixed configuration makes it difficult to re-provision or update the storage platform in the field. Moreover, in conventional systems, different platforms have different software interfaces and manageability.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for improved secure booting and provisioning.